Stopping Invenergy

“The people of Providence have a right to determine where our water goes,” said CLF attorney Max Greene. “Coercing us into selling off this public resource to power a fossil fuel plant we don’t support is not only irresponsible – it’s illegal. Invenergy’s last hope for this project rests on strong-arming our capital city, and we won’t let them get away with it.”

The problems for Invenergy continue to mount. Today, March 7, 2017, CLF filed a new lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court, the latest salvo in CLF’s long effort to stop Invenergy from building a fracked gas and diesel oil power plant in Rhode Island. Invenergy’s New Water Deal May Not Be a “Done Deal” I have…

For three years now, Big Gas has been spinning tall tales aimed at scaring you and me – and especially our local politicans – into locking in our addiction to dirty, polluting natural gas for decades to come. But their hype ignores the facts and the very real progress made over the past few years to avoid price spikes, keep the lights on, and tamp down our emissions of climate-damaging pollution.

But opponents of the plant say that renewable sources can fill in any need for new power in New England. The auction results show that there is a surplus of potential power supplies that can step in, according to Jerry Elmer, staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation. In the ISO-NE zone that includes Rhode…

The ISO’s Forward Capacity Auction 11, conducted on Monday, February 6, 2017, once again shows that the proposed Invenergy fracked gas and diesel oil power plant is not needed. The Independent System Operator-New England (ISO) is the entity that runs the New England electricity grid. The ISO is regulated under federal law, and is responsible for…

“CLF has been at the forefront of some of Rhode Island’s seminal environmental triumphs, and it is an honor to be leading such an impressive and accomplished team in the fights ahead,” said Moses. “In the past year alone, CLF has held polluters accountable for endangering our waters, protected the people of Johnston from a toxic landfill, and helped bring offshore wind to our state. We are certain to face countless uphill battles in the years to come, and I know CLF is ready to tackle them.”

“Invenergy is putting the cart before the horse by unveiling an unacceptable plan to take public water without first resolving the huge chunks missing from its power plant application,” said CLF attorney Max Greene. “The company’s plan to build enormous, expensive and unnecessary fossil fuel infrastructure flies in the face of state policy and public will, yet they continue to go forward with new plans that raise more questions than answers. It’s time for the State to recognize these repeated and glaring deficiencies and shut down this project once and for all.”

Transforming New England’s Energy System New England’s coal-fired power plants were at their peak when CLF opened its doors 50 years ago. The majority of the region’s coal fleet came online in the post-war boom years of the1950s and 1960s and they would go on to dominate our region’s electricity mix for decades. Today, however,…

“Invenergy’s proposal to build a costly plant that will burn dangerous fossil fuels continues to hit one road block after another, and for good reason: the facts are stacked against them,” said CLF senior attorney Jerry Elmer. “The legal deadline for Invenergy to submit a complete application has long passed, yet crucial elements concerning the plant’s ecological and environmental impacts remain missing. Merely suspending the docket at this point falls one step short – it’s time for the Board to close the docket once and for all.”

Scott Comings is the Associate State Director of The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island. In his role at The Nature Conservancy, he has worked with and facilitated hundreds of scientific research projects in the state, participated in multiple statewide habitat assessments and overseen stewardship of all of the Conservancy’s Rhode Island lands since 2009. Previous…